When Pope Leo X entered Florence in triumph in 1515, he and his cousins Giulio (later Pope Clement VII) initiated a series of commissions at San Lorenzo which built upon the projects of their Medici ancestors at that church. The new Sacristy, now generally known as the Medici Chapel (Cappella Medicea), was designed as a burial pantheon for the Medici family. The funereal monuments were commissioned in 1520 by Pope Clement VII, executed largely by Michelangelo from 1520 to 1534, and completed by Michelangelo's pupils after his departure.

The studies for or the allegorical figures in the Medici Chapel illustrate the weight of a muscular body. The powerful body seems stolid and portly, almost pressed down under its own weight, as expressed in the vigorous contour lines that appear to be yielding to the massive figure. The drafts are a sculptor's drawings in which the master was already thinking of the later execution in marble as he made various studies of details from different points of view.

Michelangelo also made studies for a painting (a Resurrection scene) in the lunette above the double tomb of the Magnifici at the entrance wall of the chapel. This painting was not realized.